Everything Can Change
by totallygilmore
Summary: Five years from now, Nathan returns to Salem only to find that Melanie has moved on.


**Title: **Everything Can Change

**Summary: **Five years from now, Nathan returns to Salem only to find that Melanie has moved on. Melanie/Dario.

**EDIT:**** I originally wrote this over a year ago, but I wanted to update it with some of new favorite DOOL couples *cough, cough* ****_Sonny and Will. _****(And also Gabi and Nick, mostly because I didn't want to make her single. But I do think they're cute together). **

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><p><strong>[Main] Pairings: <strong>Melanie/Dario (endgame), former Melanie/Nathan

**[Side] Pairings: **Sami/Rafe (married), EJ/Taylor (married), Bo/Hope (married), Carly/Daniel (just married), Maggie/Victor (not married, but in a relationship), Will/Sonny (engaged), Gabi/Nick, and a little bit of former Stephanie (though she's never physically in this story)/Nathan

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><p><strong>AN: Mix of storylines currently (Nov. 2012) and when I originally wrote this story (August 2011). **

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><p><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>I do not own _Days of Our Lives_. I do, though, own my own writing. :)

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><p>Nathan Horton walked across the pier in Salem. It had been five years since he had been here last. Five years since he had found out the secret Stephanie had been keeping from him and broke off his engagement to her. Five years since he had tried to get the love of his live, Melanie, back. Five years since he left for Baltimore.<p>

Now, he was standing in front of his Grandma Maggie's door.

"Hi, Nathan!" Maggie said, cheerfully, embracing her grandson, "It's great to have you home!"

"It's great to be home," he replied, smiling.

Then, he cut to the chase.

"Do you have Melanie's address?"

"Nathan…" Maggie began, sternly.

"Please," he pleaded, "I just need to talk to her."

Maggie sighed and surrendered. She walked over to a kitchen drawer and pulled a sheet of paper. She handed it to him.

"Here it is. _But_ Nathan, you should know—"

Nathan quickly replied, "Thanks," and ran out of the Horton house before he could hear Maggie finish her sentence.

xxx

He arrived in what he knew was Daniel's apartment building. Was Melanie _still _living with her father?

But as he stared at the apartment number on the sheet and looked at the door in front of him, he knew that it wasn't Daniel's.

He knocked.

A young, Hispanic man, probably in his late twenties, opened the door.

"Uh, hi," Nathan replied, looking down at the sheet of paper in his hand.

Did he have the wrong number? No.

"Does Melanie Layton live here?" He continued.

The man nodded, "Yes, but she is Melanie _Hernandez_, now."

_What?_

"Dario," came the red-heads voice, "Who is at the—"

Melanie was now in his sight.

"_Nathan_," She stated, surprised.

"You know him?" Dario asked.

Melanie nodded, "Yeah, uh, Nathan and I, uh, used to work at the hospital together."

_We were more than that, _Nathan thought.

Dario nodded.

The three of them stood there awkwardly for a moment before Melanie spoke up again.

"So, Dario, Nathan. Nathan, my _husband_, Dario," She gestured between the two men.

_Husband?_, Nathan thought, _When did she get married? Why didn't she ever call and tell me she got married? Or Maggie tell me before I came over here? _

That is when he realized Maggie had. That was what she has been trying to tell him when he ran out the door.

"Mama! _Mama!_" He heard. He looked down to see a girl with reddish-brownish hair.

"Is she—"

"Dario and my daughter?" Melanie finished for him, "_Yes, _she's two."

"Her name is Margaret Arianna Hernandez," Dario added.

"We were just heading to the hospital Horton Christmas reading," Melanie told Nathan.

"Who's reading this year?" He asked.

Melanie picked up her daughter, before replying, "Will."

"Cool," was all he could say.

"So," Melanie looked from Dario to him to the floor, "We should go."

She slung her purse over her shoulder, stepped out into the hallway with her family, locking the door behind her. Then someone's phone went off.

"Oh, it's mine," Dario said, looking at the screen, "It's Rafe. He's probably wondering is we're going to do family Christmas after the Horton hospital Christmas. I'll be right back."

Melanie nodded as her husband walked down the hallway.

"He's Rafe—"

"Brother," Melanie finished for him, again.

Nathan nodded, "So, when did he come to Salem?"

Melanie set her daughter down. The little girl ran over to her daddy, shouting, "Dada! _Dada!_ Lemme! Gimme!" and jumping up and down for the phone Dario was holding.

Melanie rolled her eyes, "Why does it matter, Nathan? The question that should be asked is what are _you _doing _back _in Salem?"

Nathan looked to make sure Melanie's husband was out of ear shot. Dario was at the other end of the hall.

"I came back for you," he stated, simply, "Now, just answer my question."

Melanie sighed, "He came here five years ago, Nathan. Not long after you left."

"You love him?"

Melanie nodded, "Yes. I love him."

"Five and a half years ago, we were laying in Salem hospital beds, very sick. You admitted you loved me."

"Maybe then, I did. But it's five years later, Nathan. There _is _a difference between your first love and your true love. You may have been my first love, but Dario is my true love. And when I said I couldn't marry you, _ever_, before you left for Baltimore, I meant it. I've grown up, I've matured. I've found someone that I didn't pass up a chance at being with."

Nathan rolled his eyes, "Melanie, you've made this mistake before. You married Philip and then divorced him."

Melanie looked him straight in the eyes.

"This is _not _the same thing. Not even close," she stated, "When I married Philip, I had doubts. I wrote a letter to you asking that if you still loved me, I wouldn't marry him. But you never said a word, so I married him. Then, I married him because I wanted so badly to be a part of a family and the only family I thought I really had was Max and he wasn't in the country. And you were still trying to figure out your relationship with Stephanie. At the time, Philip could give me what I wanted—a family to be in. Then, I found my biological parents and even though they were not together, at the time, they were still my family. And when everything came out about Chloe and Phillip and baby Parker, I had a family to run to. Then you asked me to marry you, and I couldn't because every time I did have a chance at being with you, I didn't choose you either. When I met Dario, I didn't pass up a chance at being with him. When I married Dario, I didn't marry him because I was only looking for a family to be a part of …I married him because I loved him. I _still _do _love him_ and our daughter, with all my heart."

The former couple stood there, staring at each other for the longest moment. It was Dario who finally broke the silence as he walked back towards them.

"Ready to go?"

Melanie nodded. Dario scooped up their two year old daughter who has just come running down the hallway behind him.

"Your friend, Nathan, can come with us, if he likes. We have enough room in the car," Dario commented.

"I thought we were walking," Melanie said.

"Oh, right."

"Thanks, anyway, but I can't," Nathan replied, "I better stop by Maggie's before I head to the hospital reading."

Nathan walked out of the apartment building, quickly. He wanted to get away. But somehow, he couldn't. His thoughts of trying to forget were drowned out by Melanie and Dario's voices, talking about Sami and Rafe's Hernandez family Christmas.

xxx

Nathan lied. He didn't go to Maggie's to help her. He sat in the park, alone, staring at an old picture of him and Melanie that he had kept on his phone. His finger hovered over the _'delete'_ button, but he couldn't quite bring himself to remove the picture just yet.

xxx

Awhile later, he decided he would go to the Horton Christmas reading. Maybe, he would feel better after he attended it. Yes, Melanie, her husband, and her daughter would be there, but that was not going to put a damper on his family's Christmas reading. Plus, there were plenty of other Salem folks to talk to.

As he walked into the building, he saw all the families. Some couples were still the same, some he never had seen before. That was Salem for you.

"Hey, Nathan," came Maxine's voice, "It's been a long time since we saw you last, hon."

Nathan spun around to see the old nurse, who had been at Salem hospital for a long time.

"Hey, Maxine," he replied.

"Wondering about the families, huh?" Maxine asked him.

"Yeah."

"Well, Salem's always changing, as you know. But it's been pretty quiet the last year and a half to two years."

"So, who are…?"

"Well, of course you know your Grandma Maggie, Victor, Brady, Lexi, Theo, Abe, Bo, Hope, Ciara, Chloe, Parker, Philip…um, Jennifer, you know, came back to down with Abigail and Abigail's dating Chad DiMera. Carly and Daniel have just recently gotten married. Gabi and her boyfriend, Nick. There's Sami, Rafe, Will and his boyfriend, or now fiancée Sonny Kirakis..." The mention of the word _Will _and _boyfriend _in the same sentence caught Nathan a bit off-guard, nevertheless, he was happy for the two men. "And Gabi and Will have a daughter-Emma-which happened way before Will came-out, just so you are not confused. She spends equal time between her daddy and her _papa _as she has dubbed Sonny and her mama Gabi and Nick. Then, there's Allie, Johnny, Sydney, oh, and the newest member of their family, one year old Sofia Hernandez. On the other side of Sydney is E.J. and his wife, Taylor—neé Walker, she was Nicole's sister," Maxine pointed to a very pregnant Taylor and E.J. sitting next to her, "And there is Melanie and…I'm guessing you already know about that one by the look on your face."

He nodded.

"Hey, Nathan!" Will shouted.

"Hey, man," He said, hugging Will, "So, I heard Sonny is your fiancée now?"

Will smiled. "Yeah, I asked him to marry me two weeks ago. Or really, we kind-of, unknowingly, asked each other at the same time! But I'm-_we're_-" Will corrected himself as Sonny approached them, sliding his arm around Sonny's waist. "_Incredibly_ happy."

"Congratulations," Nathan told the two.

Will walked off to the front of the room and Nathan stood alone in the back of the room. He looked out at the crowd, again, and realized that he was one of the only ones standing alone. Everyone else had their families.

He watched Melanie interact with her family. She had a family. She was actually in love. She was happy. Truly happy. He clicked _'delete'_ on his phone and the old picture of him and Melanie, taken many years ago, faded away. All he wanted was for her to be happy and if she found her soul mate in someone else, who was he to intrude?

As Will's voiced rang out from the front of the room, he realized as he looked around at the people that me shouldn't—more like _couldn't _be here.

_A drop in the ocean, a change in the weather, I was praying that you and me might end up together…_

So, he quietly exited the building.

_I'm moving on, letting go…_

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><p><strong>NEW AN: Just reiterating that I originally wrote this over a year ago, but I wanted to update it with some of new favorite DOOL couples *cough, cough* ****_Sonny and Will._**** I love WilSon! :)(And also Gabi and Nick, mostly because I didn't want to make her single. But I do think they're cute together). **

**ORIGINAL A/N: First, thanks for reading! Second, if any Melanie/Nathan fans did read this and were disappointed, I did give fair warning that it was Melanie/Dario endgame at the beginning of this story. I don't have anything against Melanie/Nathan, I like them, but I like Melanie/Dario a lot better. **

**The two song lines were from these songs:**

**"A Drop in the Ocean" by Ron Pope**

**"Wherever I Go" by Emily Osment (ft. Miley Cyrus)**

**Third, this is my first 'Days' fanfic, I've been watching the show for almost six years and so if I messed up any storylines from episodes I missed, I'm sorry. :)**

**And Mel and Dario's daughter, if you guessed it, **_**is **_**named after Arianna and Maggie.**

**It's not my first time writing on here tho, I usually write **_**Glee **_**and ABC Family shows. That writing is usually a lot better, I think, because I have more relation with the characters, as for this, it's hard to write because I feel like I can't mess this up because the show has been on for almost forty-six years.  
>But I hope you enjoyed it! :)<strong>

**Oh, and again, this story excludes current rumors, casting decisions lately, and some current and upcoming storylines. And all the couples listed at the top that don't have "former", I ship.**

**Review please!**


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